Vintage Funny Car Racing - Fantastic Plastic

1/26No, this is not 1971-and that's not a '69 Camaro in the far lane; beneath Bob Godfrey's Z28 stripes and grille is a Barracuda in disguise. The other fish belongs to Justin Grant, whose successful online raffle for a chance to join his crew financed a tow from Illinois to the 50th March Meet, where airborne photographer Marc Gewertz got the shot for HOT ROD.

Remember when Funny Cars looked like real cars instead of Easter eggs? If so, you've already discovered the new playground for your old favorites. If not, nostalgia Funny Cars offer an unexpected opportunity to relive the Big Four battles your dad and granddad have been babbling about all these years.

Better hurry, though; at the rate these new/old combinations are evolving, the classic Camaros, Mustangs, Barracudas, Chargers, Challengers, Vegas, Firebirds, Arrows, and AMCs may go the way of NHRA and NASCAR spec cars. Alas, in the four seasons since Goodguys opened its gates to a handful of fledgling floppers, eligible pre-'82 bodies have been chopped, narrowed, lengthened, and smoothed in ways that builders of the '60s and '70s never imagined possible.

In 1984, one NHRA team did look ahead and made a new mold-figuratively and literally-whose influence is still evident, and newly controversial. Backed by Ford money and therefore stuck with an '85 Tempo body, Kenny Bernstein assigned Dale Armstrong the challenge of making a successful race car out of an ugly compact. The most noticeable part of drag racing's first carbon-fiber shell was its unprecedented 40-inch front overhang. Among the long-term consequences are the Pinocchio noses sprouting from nostalgia cars a quarter-century later.

Because a 125-inch wheelbase is permitted by both modern and nostalgia rules, hand-me-down NHRA chassis are plentiful and affordable. Most racers shorten the frame to fit inside traditional bodies, whose front overhangs stayed close to factory specs. However, this modification also requires relocating the fuel tank and fire bottles rearward-thereby removing significant performance advantages. The overhanging weight of a big tank, fuel, and fire bottles eliminates the need for any ballast bars, and a longer nose effectively shortens the quarter-mile by as much as 3 feet. (Although both types of chassis stage with their front tires, top end downforce causes their noses to break the finish line beam.) Traditionalists would like to see these anteater snouts snuffed out by the owner-directed Nitro Funny Car Association (NFCA), but the offenders include new NFCA President Lee Jennings Sr., who built a Pinocchio car for Lee Jr.

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Veteran tuner Steve Plueger got together with one of his chassis shop customers, Bucky Austin, to field the dominating Plymouth Arrow that swept the '07 California Hot Rod Reunion and the '08 March Meet with steady 5.80s at 243-plus. An unofficial 5.793 e.t., recorded on a Pomona exhibition pass, is the quickest for the class.

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Yes, after all these years, a brand-new Hot Wheels 1:64 diecast is coming to stores near you. Rian Konno steers for owner George Doty and crewchief Bob Noice, who's been building winning Top Fuel motors since the early '60s (Accessories Limited's giant-killing, unblown Chevy). Larry Pettit rode Crazy Horse to the '05 Goodguys championship and nostalgia's first official 5-second e.t.

5/26Leah Pruett, a graduate of Junior Dragsters and Nostalgia Eliminator, makes the transition from blown-alcohol roadster to fuel flopper look easy. Just 19, she went two rounds at the '08 March Meet, clocking 6.16/223 and 6.18/232. Lakes racer Les Leggitt builds the power.

Bending the engine rules isn't unheard of, either. A set of 8-71 supercharger rotors somehow got itself inside the mandatory 6-71 case, in one recent example. Because two-speeds and 17-inch pro-fuel tires are legal, these cars benefit more from power increases than nostalgia diggers, which get no transmission and 8 fewer inches of rubber (13.00-16 Racemasters or Hoosiers, only). Last but not least, their bodies and rear spoilers produce infinitely more downforce at the top end, where the slingshots slide around.

NHRA introduced a nostalgia supplement to its rule book after Goodguys bailed in 2006, basically adopting rules originated by early racers. However, NHRA shuns the role of policeman. "It's up to the individual track operator to enforce the rules and determine the purse," explains Steve Gibbs, 68, the longtime competition director and vice president who ended a comfortable semiretirement to fill a void left by Goodguys. "NHRA does not produce events other than our two Hot Rod Reunions. We don't bring in a crew. The goal is to preserve the charm of the nostalgia cars while refining the rules as needed. That's a fine line to walk, sometimes."

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Whether the vintage fuel coupes now operating in your area accede to any of these limitations is left to the tracks and the racers. Half the fun is in the pits, discovering who's running what hot setup, sanctioned or not-in the style of the outlaws who invented this type of vehicle. Up until 1969, when NHRA finally caved in to popular demand and created Funny Car Eliminator, racers made up the rules as they went along, rapidly advancing from unibodies with doors to space frames with lift-off bodies powered by blowers and nitro. It sure was fun while it lasted.From all indications, history is repeating itself here, for better or worse. So hurry on down to your local dragstrip. This is our last chance to relive the glory days when drag racing outdrew NASCAR and Funny Cars looked like cars.

Back To (Old) School Many guys running nostalgia cars were still racing Snake and Mongoose Hot Wheels mo-dels across mom's kitchen floor when Billy Meyer made Donnie Couch NHRA's youngest Funny Car crewchief in 1979. Some were in diapers when Roland Leong built his '69 Charger.

Donnie, 51, and Roland, 64, are but two of the unretired big-show crewchiefs now tuning detuned Hemis. Steve Montrelli, Amos Satterlee, Dale Pulde, Steve Plueger, Bob Noice, Chuck Worsham, and Les Leggett are also among other famous faces showing up at off-the-beaten-path places. The attraction seems to be less the consultant fees that well-heeled owners are offering than the chance to match mechanical wits with each other.

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Dj Views The influence that touring pros of the '70s and '80s inflicted upon starstruck youngsters is illustrated by the tribute cars that some of those kids grew up to build. Even the nostalgic logos of long-defunct sponsors are being applied, in period-perfect detail-some by the same artist who designed and airbrushed the original paint schemes, Kenny Youngblood. Now in his sixties, 'Blood (shown, right, with fabricator Alicia Stirling) is back in demand-and still pulling all-nighters to get fresh fiberglass to the strip by Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!

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Joe Pisano and Sush Matsubara are gone but not forgotten, thanks to nephew Danny Pisano. The initials of Joe P. are still carved into every JP1 aluminum Hemi block, and this replicar is exposing the late partners' names to a generation of fans denied the childhood experience of attaching tiny, ill-fitting plastic parts with airplane glue. (There is no truth to the story that Revell inserted a book of matches inside each model kit of the oft-enflamed '74 original.) Driver Jeff Utterback-a chassis builder and backup drummer for the Surfaris in two of his other lives-has gone as quick as 6 seconds flat. You know there's a whole lot left when your tuner is Steve Montrelli, one-fourth of the Big Four engine builders (along with Black, Pink, and Waterman) who inspired OCIR to stage team-style Constructors Championship showdowns.

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Ron Hodgson owned the Trans Am that earned 240 Gordie Bonin his nickname in the '70s, and the Canadian Pontiac dealer is making a comeback with a scratch-built replica. The clone also runs deep into the 240s, thanks to returning veterans Roland Leong (tuner) and Terry Capp (driver). This high-dollar dream team was the first to crack the 5.80s and has come within 1 mph of breaking the 250 barrier.

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After this new Mustang II rolled right off the trailer to a 5-second e.t. in 2005, the little guys of N/FC racing feared the worst. They needn't have; NHRA's grueling schedule plus testing leave few opportunities for Del Worsham to play '70s-match-race hero. Besides, over here, he and his dad, Chuck, are just two more good fuel racers in a class overflowing with talent and experience. Four-time world champ Raymond Beadle was in Dallas to cheer the clone's barrier-busting 5.97 exhibition blast. Three seasons later, the bar has been lowered to high 5.70s. It'll be fun to watch the popular father/son team try to catch up.

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The flamboyant Mongoose was known for flashy cars and record-setting sponsorships. The flame-throwing Corvette that brought Coors to drag racing, shown at Irwindale in the early '80s, inspired Mike Adams to pay tribute with this replica.

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We thought we'd seen the last of the Beach City Corvette on California's Santa Ana Freeway, fully engulfed in flames, after Gary Gabelich literally drove it off the end of OCIR. (Yes, kids, your dads and grandfathers really did get to stand this close to the big boys-even a future holder of the world land speed record of 622 mph.) Now, Richard Stannard's Estrus Racing Team has reincarnated the roadster: A piece of fiberglass that supposedly survived the freeway inferno is molded into this period-perfect replacement.

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"Holy Toledo!" is not the exact expression uttered by Mercury executives when a couple of nitro-burning Jeeps ran quicker than their factory fleet of '66 flip tops. NHRA quickly banned them, but Ed Lenarth is a patient man. Forty-two years later, Jeepsters are back in NHRA's good graces. James Day drives in the new Hot Rod Heritage Series. True to his early-Hemi roots, Ed prefers Donovan's 417 flathead to the 426 elephants installed almost universally by a new generation of competitors.

"If this wasn't so competitive, it wouldn't be fun," explains Donnie, who directed Gary Turner's undefeated '06 NFCA season and Steve Romanazzi's '07 March Meet win before forming Gary Messenger's Future Flash team. "I've never had so much fun!"

Roland just likes winning. He's done more than his fair share since stunning the world with back-to-back Winternationals and U.S. Nationals titles in 1965 (two-thirds of NHRA's national events!), with Don Prudhomme driving his legendary Hawaiian fueler, then again in 1966 with Mike Snively in the seat. As recently as 2004, Roland was still winning NHRA rounds as a consultant for the Snake (on Ron Capps' fuel coupe). "I'm a competitive person," he admits. "I got spoiled because I have had so much success. That's what drives me."

Donnie compares his current combination to those of the late '70s: "We're running the same basic stuff, only it's a stronger [426 Chrysler-based] block, bigger heads, better blowers, bigger fuel pumps. We don't even have a computer; I'd rather spend that nine grand on more parts. All I really need is a weather tester and feedback from Mendy [Fry]. I don't need no stinkin' Racepak; I've got the Mendypak! I prefer doing it this way. It keeps me sharp. You've still gotta look at the plugs, the bearings, the clutch; those are the key factors."

"If you buy the right stuff, you're buying 8,000hp parts," Roland adds. "We're making maybe 3,000, only because we're limited by rules to lower air and fuel volumes. Throwing the rods out is not real easy to do because we don't make the cylinder pressure [of NHRA fuel cars]. Nitro is like powder in a firecracker: You want a bigger firecracker, you put more powder in, you get a bigger bang."

Added incentive for Roland might've been revealed in his single reference to regret during an hour-long interview. "The only thing I have not accomplished is to win a world championship," he says. "We got number two three or four times, but I never went for it. I couldn't afford to; I had a wife and two daughters to feed, and we made our living match racing."

The new Hot Rod Heritage Series may give Roland additional chances to collect that elusive NHRA championship trophy-but not if the likes of Couch, Montrelli, Satterlee, Pulde, Plueger, Noice, Worsham, Leggett, and the rest can possibly prevent it.

23/26Homemade-bodies number two, three, and four have covered three different Super Nova chassis since 1969. Following his horrendous October 2007 fire, Randy Walls elected to remain at Famoso Raceway-in shock and, consequently, unaware of the extent of his burn injuries.

Super Novas, 1965-2008 Randy Walls, a Funny Car pioneer in the mid-'60s, was the first star of nostalgia racing. Since 2002, he's been bringing history and credibility to a class that did not even exist in 1998, when he plucked the third Super Nova from a farm in Pennsylvania-3,000 miles from his California home, 27 years after selling it. Amazingly, that '70 model chassis cleaned up so well that Randy cleaned up at Goodguys points events in 2004, the first championship season for nostalgia floppers. In five meets, the veteran won twice and was runner-up once. His big, heavy Chevy wasn't as swift as class leader Dan Horan's 6.2-second Mustang, but zero breakage and consistent 6.30s at 220-plus prevailed. "I never replaced a part in 80 runs, counting match races," he swears. "While everybody else was tearing motors apart, I was kicked back, having fun. I ran Indy, Bowling Green, and Pomona before I changed the oil."

That car's familiar-looking gray body was the third pulled from a mold that Randy and a buddy made from a new '69 Nova supplied by an unsuspecting rental car agency one weekend late in 1968. "We pulled the trim, clayed in all of the body openings, and waxed the crap out of it," he recalls. "We didn't hurt anything. I returned it on Monday without a scratch.

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"I netted $50,000 with that car the next season," he adds. "That was a hell of an income for 1969." Randy increased his box-office appeal by making the first 6-second run in a Chevrolet; only the third by any Funny Car (trailing Leroy Goldstein and Gene Snow). Weeks earlier, he'd come within a hundredth of breaking that barrier, clocking a frustrating 7.00.

The Super Nova series dates back to a steel stocker that Randy cut up in 1965-the first full season for what came to be known as Funny Cars. Running a blown big-block on alcohol, the crude Chevy II built a fan following that enabled young Randy to book match races against tube-framed floppers as late as 1967.

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Four years later, he was broke and gone. After selling his '69 moneymaker, completion of its '70 model replacement was delayed seven months beyond the promised delivery date. Meanwhile, he had to cancel $75,000 in guaranteed bookings as well as performance incentives. Simultaneously divorcing his first wife (the bosomy blonde who's often remembered as drag racing's original backup girl), he was forced to sell the near-new Nova in early 1971. By the time he'd recovered financially, iron Chevrolets were obsolete.

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"I refuse to go out there and melt my motor every run," he says. "I wouldn't do it then, and I won't do it now. That's why I got 120 runs out of my last set of pistons."

Such a claim may sound unbelievable, coming from the guy whose current car virtually burned to the ground last fall in the fiercest fire ever seen in nostalgia racing. "The cause of that was a poor weld in the fuel tank," he explains. "It was leaking during my burnout. I saw the starting line crew mopping while I was backing up, but I couldn't see the track itself. A forensic expert told me that the fuel was probably already burning. When I took off, air rushing through it added oxygen, and it went from a low-temp flash point to a high-temp flash point."

Making matters worse, the driver wrestled with a stubborn arm restraint for a full minute after popping the roof hatch and disconnecting his fresh-air supply. The resultant smoke inhalation and burns to his hands and legs (including third-degree damage that nearly melted an Achilles tendon) were not enough to keep him home this season, but the mechanical damage was.

Aiming for a 2009 return-at age 68-Randy has refreshed his trusty Rat motor and repaired his crispy (ex-Top Alcohol Funny Car) chassis. There's never been any doubt about a replacement body: For the fifth time since returning that rental car 40 years ago, Randy Walls will soon be plucking a plastic Super Nova from his homemade mold.